Diela, her ragged nightgown dragging behind her, was followed up the grassy hill by a slow-moving emperor penguin. When she finally noticed the penguin, near the crest of the hill, she dropped her bloody knife and knelt down, taking the note from its beak. “Surrender,” the note read. “Or we kill the boy.”
Dried leaves covered the gravel road and it all but disappeared in the forest of grey trees. In the middle of the road was a gigantic spider with thick, pointy legs and a human head. Its legs stretched almost all the way across the narrow, country road.
The two children stood frozen in their tracks, staring at the creature blocking their path. The girl whispered, “Kill it, Marty.” Marty just stared.
The rain poured down, sheets of gray hammering the asphalt. Eddie lay splayed out under the truck out of the storm, his wounds gory but not bleeding. Eddie stirred, moaning a low moan. He got to his hands and knees and crawled out from under the truck. He had no memory of how he got there. His only sensation was one of a gnawing hunger that caused him to lumber forward, towards the cab.